In the previous section we looked at the level of the greatest tzaddikim, in whose souls the world of Atzilus shines in a revealed way: the level of the merkavah, the «chariot». This does not mean that they have no intellect and no emotion. It means that their intellect thinks only what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants, and their emotion feels only what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants. More precisely: it is not he who understands and not he who feels. Rather, the Divine understanding and the Divine feeling are what shine within him, and even his hands move only according to the will of the Creator.
An example from the story of the Akeidah:
At the Akeidah the verse says: “וישלח אברהם את ידו ויקח את המאכלת לשחוט את בנו” (And Avraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son). On the face of it the wording is redundant. It would have been enough to write «and he took the knife», since obviously a knife is taken with the hand, and the Torah does not write unnecessary words.
A profound explanation is given here. The true will of the Creator was not that Avraham should actually slaughter his son. Avraham Avinu, being a merkavah to G-dliness, was in absolute bittul, utter self-nullification, to the Supreme Will, and therefore his hand was simply incapable of doing something contrary to G-d's will. His hand, as it were, would not move. That is why the verse needs «And Avraham stretched out his hand»: he had to take hold of his own hand and send it out, as it were, against its own will. At that moment, the moment of the test, the Holy One, blessed be He, withheld from him the clear knowledge of what the Creator's true will was, so that a gap opened between his revealed awareness and his own limbs, and with his free choice he carried out the command as he understood it.
But in the normal course of things, after he had withstood all the tests and it was said of him “now I know that you fear G-d,” he stood at the level of a complete merkavah: everything about him, his understanding, his feeling and his action, was all G-dliness revealed. It is as though the Creator's outstretched hand and the Creator's own intellect were present and walking about in this world in the form of flesh and blood: these are Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. This is the level of the greatest tzaddikim, in whose souls the world of Atzilus shines openly.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: “אלא עבודתם היא בבחינת מרכבה ממש לאין סוף ברוך הוא, להיבטל אליו במציאות ולהיכלל באורו יתברך, הם וכל אשר להם” (rather, their service is literally in the category of a chariot to the blessed Infinite, to be nullified to Him in their very existence and absorbed in His blessed light, they and all that is theirs). Everything belonging to them is nothing but an expression of the Divine will in the world. [In the printed editions the text reads «their service was», and the list of corrections notes that it should read «is», matching the earlier wording: «for the great tzaddikim, whose service is on a far loftier plane».] And this level is not only beyond the reach of every person; it is beyond the reach of every tzaddik as well, and belongs only to the greatest tzaddikim, whose soul is a soul of Atzilus.
“על דרך שאמרו: האבות הן הן המרכבה” (as they said: the Patriarchs are themselves the chariot):
This is the well known expression said of the holy Avos, that they are permanently in that lofty bittul of being a merkavah to the Shechinah. One could ask: there were other tzaddikim too who were on the level of merkavah, so why is this title given specifically to the Avos?
The difference is this. The other tzaddikim who reached the level of merkavah were there at certain times, at certain stages, and in certain areas. With the Avos, however, “לפי שכל ימיהם הייתה זאת עבודתם” (because all their days this was their service). This was their very essence from beginning to end: their whole life, their whole being, and everything connected to them. Even the stories told about them in the Torah, which to our small human eyes look like simple accounts of going here and doing that, the kind of stories small children love to hear, are in truth G-dliness revealed, because that is the level of the Avos, the level of Atzilus.
“אך מי ששורש נשמתו קטן מהכיל עבודה תמה זו” (but one whose soul-root is too small to contain this perfect service):
If a person cannot reach this service, it is not because he did not try hard enough, for even if he exerts himself and tries he will not arrive there. A person cannot simply decide that he wants to reach the level of merkavah and become a merkavah. To be in such a state, the root of his soul must belong to such a level.
[And this is no contradiction to the teaching «a person should always say: when will my deeds reach the deeds of my fathers Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov». Note the precise wording: “מעשיי למעשי אבותיי” (my deeds to the deeds of my fathers). The aspiration is to imitate the good deeds they did, and certainly everyone must aspire to that; but it does not mean becoming like them and standing at their level.]
Therefore, one whose soul-root is too small to contain this perfect service, “ליבטל וליכלל באורו יתברך בעבודתו בקביעות” (to be nullified and absorbed in His blessed light through his service on a permanent basis), does not belong to this constantly, but “רק לפרקים ועתים” (only at certain periods and times). And indeed, there are tzaddikim who at certain times receive an illumination from their lofty root in the world of Atzilus. For the root of every Jew is in Atzilus, as each of us says in the morning blessings:
“אלוקיי, נשמה שנתת בי טהורה היא” (My G-d, the soul You placed within me is pure): the level of Atzilus.
“אתה בראתה” (You created it): it passed through the world of Beriah.
“אתה יצרתה” (You formed it): it passed through the world of Yetzirah.
“אתה נפחתה בי” (You breathed it into me): it arrived in the world of Asiyah.
So the source of every Jew is indeed in the world of Atzilus, but not everyone has the world of Atzilus shining within him, and not even Beriah or Yetzirah, and at times barely even Asiyah. What, then, characterizes those «periods and times» when the illumination from Atzilus does shine? “שהם עת רצון למעלה” (which are a time of favor Above). Because it is a time of favor from Above, an opening is made for him, and in that moment he stands in complete bittul to the Divine will, with all his limbs or with part of his faculties of feeling.
Shemoneh Esrei and its bowings:
When is that time of favor? “וכמו בתפילת שמונה עשרה” (as in the Shemoneh Esrei prayer). As mentioned, of the four rungs in the ladder of prayer, Shemoneh Esrei is the highest rung, corresponding to the world of Atzilus, and that is why it is said in silence. This does not refer to someone who races through the prayer without knowing where he began and where he finished, but to a person whose prayer is inward and orderly: when he reaches Shemoneh Esrei he truly arrives at this level, a state of self-nullification to G-dliness on the level of merkavah.
[The Gemara already teaches that one should be grateful to the body for knowing of its own accord to bow at «Modim anachnu lach», even when the one praying has his mind somewhere else entirely.]
And within Shemoneh Esrei itself, which is long and contains eighteen blessings (in practice nineteen), there are only certain places where one bows: in the blessing of «Magen Avraham» at its beginning and its end, and in «Modim» at its beginning and its end. What is the meaning of bowing? When a person stands upright he feels that he has a head, he has a heart and he has a foot: a whole structure of levels. When he bows, head and foot come to the same plane, and by this he expresses that he is entirely nullified to the Creator of the world and that for him there is no difference between head and foot.
It is known that when the Beis Hamikdash stood, when the people heard the Ineffable Name issue from the mouth of the Kohen Gadol they would all kneel and prostrate themselves, as we recall in the Yom Kippur service. That prostration was not a technical, external act that they had been commanded to perform, but the result of a tremendous Divine revelation that worked such inner bittul upon a person that it found expression even in his body. In exile there are no such revelations, as we say in the festival prayers: «and we are unable to go up and be seen and bow before You».
This is what the Alter Rebbe says: “ובפרט בהשתחוואות שבה, שכל השתחוואה היא בבחינת אצילות, כמו שכתוב בפרי עץ חיים בקבלת שבת, כי היא בחינת ביטול באורו יתברך, להיות חשיב כלא ממש” (and especially in the prostrations within it, for every prostration is in the category of Atzilus, as is written in Pri Etz Chaim in the section on Kabbalas Shabbos, since it is the category of nullification in His blessed light, to be regarded as truly nothing). The entire Shemoneh Esrei belongs to the world of Atzilus, and the bowing within it is the revelation of the Atzilus contained in it: bittul to the Divine light, in which a person is considered before the Creator as literally nothing, as one who has no existence at all.
And from here follows the conclusion regarding that person whose soul-root is too small to contain this perfect service: “אזי גם כן עיקר קביעות נשמתו בעולם הבריאה, ורק לפרקים בעת רצון תעלה נשמתו לאצילות בבחינת מיין נוקבין כידוע ליודעי חן” (then the permanent place of his soul is likewise in the world of Beriah, and only at certain periods, at a time of favor, does his soul ascend to Atzilus in the category of mayin nukvin, as is known to those versed in the hidden wisdom). His fixed place is essentially in the world of Beriah, and only at times, at a time of favor, does his soul rise to Atzilus.
“בבחינת מיין נוקבין” (in the category of mayin nukvin):
This concept is known to «those versed in chen», the masters of the inner dimension of Torah and Kabbalah, and it means an arousal that comes from below. It is known that the relationship between male and female serves as an analogy for the relationship between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Jewish people: the male is the giver and the female is the receiver, G-d gives and we receive. Accordingly, every arousal and every initiative coming from the Jew upward is called in the language of Kabbalah mayin nukvin, an arousal coming from the side of the receiver, from below. Something similar is found in the month of Elul, the acronym of «Ani leDodi veDodi li» (I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine), where «I am my Beloved's» is the person's own uplifting of himself upward. So too here: through his own service in prayer, in Shemoneh Esrei and in the bowings within it, a person arouses himself from below, and a higher bittul is revealed to him, even though ordinarily he does not belong to this at all.
With this we conclude, in general terms, the explanation of the levels we have been dealing with over several lessons: the levels of the tzaddikim belonging to the world of Yetzirah, to the world of Beriah and to the world of Atzilus, some of which were rather abstract. From here on comes the practical directive: a person must see to it that his service of G-d contains vitality and an arousal of feeling. When there is vitality and feeling, a person is lifted upward, and where he is lifted to depends on his level: to the world of Yetzirah, to the world of Beriah and so on; but in any case he does not remain where he was. By contrast, a person whose service is completely dry, with no arousal at all, remains on a low plane.
In the continuation of the chapter the Alter Rebbe will explain the importance of emotional arousal, even the natural feeling that would seem to belong to the world of Yetzirah, since that too is already a certain level of feeling. Hence the great importance of not performing things as «mitzvos anashim melumadah», a rote routine done out of habit alone with no attention to what one is doing. Rather one should stop and think: what am I doing, why am I doing it, and what does my action accomplish. This contemplation, and the feeling and arousal that accompany the performance of mitzvos, are very important, and this despite what we learned in chapter 36, that the deed is the main thing, since in chapter 38 we began to learn that a mitzvah must have not only a body but also a soul, and that soul is the inner feeling.
In summary: in this section we learned that the level of merkavah means that the tzaddik's intellect, emotion and deeds are not his own but G-dliness revealed, as hinted in the redundant wording «And Avraham stretched out his hand» at the Akeidah. We examined the Alter Rebbe's phrase «their service is literally in the category of a chariot», and the reason that specifically the Avos are called «they themselves are the chariot»: «because all their days this was their service». We saw that one whose soul-root is too small to contain this perfect service does not belong to it permanently, but only at certain periods and times, at a time of favor, as in Shemoneh Esrei and especially in the bowings within it, which are the category of Atzilus and complete bittul. At such a time his soul ascends to Atzilus in the category of mayin nukvin, while its permanent place remains in the world of Beriah.
In the next section we will take up the continuation of the chapter: the importance of emotional arousal in the service of G-d, even natural love and fear, as the soul that gives life to the performance of the mitzvos.